AUTHORITIES.--F. de Martins, Recueil des traites conclus
par la Russie, &c. (St Petersb., 1874, &c.); Wellington
Despatches Castlereagh Correspondence; Prince Adam Czartoryski,
Memoires et correspondance avec l'empereur Alexandre I.
(Paris, 1887, 2 vols.). P. Bailleu (ed). Briefwechsel Konig
Friedrich Wilhelm's III. und der Konigin Luise mit Kaiser
Alexander I. (Leipzig, 1900); Laharpe, Le Gouverneur d'un
Prince (F. C de Laharpe et Alexandre I. de Russie) 1902;
Serge Tatischeff, Alexandre I. et Napoleon d'apres leur
correspondance inedite (Paris, 1901); Joseph de Maistre,
Memoires historiques et correspondance diplomatique,
ed. A. Blanc (2nd ed., 1859); Comtesse de Choiseul-Gouffier,
Memoires historiques sur l'empereur Alexandre (1829),
and Reminiscences sur l'empereur Alexandre I., &c.
(Paris, 1862); Rulemann Friedrich Eylert, Charakterzuge
und historische Fragmente aus dem Leben Konig Friedrich
Wilhelm's III. (1846); H. L. Empaytaz, Notice sur Alexandre
Empereur de Russie (2nd ed., Paris, 1840); Comte A. de
la Garde- Chambonas, Souvenirs du Congres de Vienne;
publ. avec introd. et notes par le Cte. Fleury (1901).
LIVES.--The principal life of Alexander I. is that, in
Russian, by Nikolai Karlovich Schilder, Imperator Aleksander,
&c. (4 vols., St Petersb., 1897, 1898). See also Bogdanovich,
History of the Government of the Emperor Alexander I.
(St Petersburg, 1869-1871, Nikolaus I. Band i. Kaiser
Alexander I. und die Ergebnisse seiner Lebensarbeit (Berl.,
1904), a valuable study based upon much new material from the
state archives of St Petersburg, Paris, Berlin and Vienna;
A. Vandal, Napoleon et Alexandre I.: l'alliance Russe
sous le premier empire (3 vols., Paris, 1891-1896); A. N.
Pypin, Political and Literary Movements under Alexander
I. (Russian, 2nd ed. St Petersburg, 1885; German, Berlin,
1894). Among the numerous less authoritative biographies
may be mentioned Ivan Golovin, Histoire d'Alexandre I.
(Leipzig, 1859), and C. Joyneville, Life and Times of
Alexander I. (3 vols., 1875). This last contains much
valuable information, but the references in footnotes are
often wanting in precision, and it has no index. (W. A. P.)
1 Savary to Napoleon, Nov. 4, 1807. Tatischeff, p. 226.
2 Circular of Count Muraviev, Aug. 24, 1898.
3 Instructions to M. Novosiltsov, Sept. 11, 1804. Tatiseheff, p. 82.
4 Savary to Napoleon, Nov. 18, 1807. Tatischeff, p. 232.
5 Coulaincourt to Napoleon, 4th report, Aug. 3, 1809. Tatischeff, p. 496.
6 Alexander speaking to Colonel Michaud. Tatischeff, p. 612.
7 Castlereagh to Liverpool, Oct. 2, 1814. F.O. Papers. Vienna VII.
8 Martens IV. oart i. p. 49.
9 Etat des negociations actueelles, &c., mem. prepared by
order of the Tsar, July 16, 1815, enclosed in Castlereagh to
Liverpool, F.O. Cont. papers. Congress Paris, Castlereagh, 22.
10 Despatch of Lieven, Nov. 30 (Dec. 12), 1819, and
Russ. Circular of Jan. 27, 1820. Martens IV. part i. p. 270.
11 Apercu des idees de l'Empereur, Martens IV. part i. p. 269.
12 Metternich Mem.
13 Martens IV. part i. pp. 307, &c.
14 See W. Gasiorowski, Tragic Russia,
translated by Viscount de Busancy (London, 1908).
ALEXANDER II. (1818-1881), emperor of Russia, eldest
son of Nicholas I., was born on the 29th of April 1818.
His early life gave little indication of his subsequent
activity, and up to the moment of his accession in 1855 no
one ever imagined that he would be known to posterity as a
great reformer. In so far as he had any decided political
convictions, he seemed to be animated with that reactionary
spirit which was predominant in Europe at the time of his
birth, and continued in Russia to the end of his father's
reign. In the period of thirty years during which he was
heir-apparent, the moral atmosphere of St Petersburg was
very unfavourable to the development of any originality of
thought or character. It was a time of government on martinet
principles, under which all freedom of thought and all private
initiative were as far as possible suppressed vigorously by the
administration. Political topics were studiously avoided in
general conversation, and books or newspapers in which the
most keen-scented press-censor could detect the least odour of
political or religious free-thinking were strictly prohibited.
Criticism of existing authorities was regarded as a serious
offence. The common policeman, the insignificant scribe
in a public office, and even the actors in the ``imperial''
theatres, were protected against public censure as effectually
as the government itself; for the whole administration was
considered as one and indivisible, and an attack on the humblest
representative of the imperial authority was looked on as
an indirect attack on the fountain from which that authority
flowed. Such was the moral atmosphere in which young Alexander
Nicolaevich grew up to manhood. He received the education
commonly given to young Russians of good family at that time--a
smattering of a great many subjects, and a good practical
acquaintance with the chief modern European languages.
Like so many of his countryman he displayed great linguistic
ability, and his quick ear caught up even peculiarities of
dialect. His ordinary life was that of an officer of the
Guards, modified by the ceremonial duties incumbent on him as
heir to the throne. Nominally he held the post of director
of the military schools, but he took little personal interest
in military affairs. To the disappointment of his father,
in whom the military instinct was ever predominant, he showed
no love of soldiering, and gave evidence of a kindliness of
disposition and a tender-heartedness which were considered
out of place in one destined to become a military autocrat.
These tendencies had been fostered by his tutor Zhukovsky,
the amiable humanitarian poet, who had made the Russian
public acquainted with the literature of the German romantic
school, and they remained with him all through life, though
they did not prevent him from being severe in his official
position when he believed severity to be necessary. In 1841
he married the daughter of the grand-duke Louis II. of Hesse,
Maximilienne Wilhelmine Marie, thenceforward known as Maria
Alexandrovna, who bore him six sons and two daughters. He
did not travel much abroad, for his father, in his desire to
exclude from Holy Russia the subversive ideas current in Western
Europe, disapproved foreign tours, and could not consistently
encourage in his own family what he tried to prevent among
the rest of his subjects. He visited England, however, in
1839, and in the years immediately preceding his accession he
was entrusted with several missions to the courts of Berlin
and Vienna. On the 2nd of March 1855, during the Crimean
War, he succeeded to the throne on the death of his father.
The first year of the new reign was devoted to the prosecution
of the war, and after the fall of Sevastopol, to negotiations for
peace. Then began a period of radical reforms, recommended
by public opinion and carried out by the autocratic
power. The rule of Nicholas, which had sacrificed all other
interests to that of making Russia an irresistibly strong
military power, had been tried by the Crimean War and found
wanting. A new system must, therefore, be adopted. All
who had any pretensions to enlightenment declared loudly
that the country had been exhausted and humiliated by the
war, and that the only way of restoring it to its proper
position in Europe was to develop its natural resources and
to reform thoroughly all branches of the administration.
The government found, therefore, in the educated classes a
new-born public spirit, anxious to assist it in any work of
reform that it might think fit to undertake. Fortunately
for Russia the autocratic power was now in the hands of a
man who was impressionable enough to be deeply influenced by
the spirit of the time, and who had sufficient prudence and
practical common-sense to prevent his being carried away by
the prevailing excitement into the dangerous region of Utopian
dreaming. Unlike some of his predecessors, he had no grand,
original schemes of his own to impose by force on unwilling
subjects, and no pet crotchets to lead his judgment astray;
and he instinctively looked with a suspicious, critical eye on
the panaceas which more imaginative and less cautious people
recommended. These traits of character, together with the
peculiar circumstances in which he was placed, determined the
part which he was to play. He moderated, guided and in great
measure realized the reform aspirations of the educated classes.
Emancipation of the serfs.
Though he carefully guarded his autocratic rights and
privileges, and obstinately resisted all efforts to push him
farther than he felt inclined to go he acted for several years
somewhat like a constitutional sovereign of the continental
type. At first he moved so slowly that many of the impatient,
would-be reformers began to murmur at the unnecessary
delay. In reality not much time was lost. Soon after
the conclusion of peace important changes were made in the
legislation concerning industry and commerce, and the new
freedom thus accorded produced a large number of limited
liability companies. At the same time plans were formed
for constructing a great network of railways, partly for the
purpose of developing the natural resources of the country, and
partly for the purpose of increasing its powers of defence and
attack. Then it was found that further progress was blocked
by a great obstacle, the existence of serfage: and Alexander
II. showed that, unlike his father, he meant to grapple boldly
with the difficult and dangerous problem. Taking advantage of
a petition presented by the Polish landed proprietors of the
Lithuanian provinces, praying that their relations with the
serfs might be regulated in a more satisfactory way--meaning
in a way more satisfactory for the proprietors--he authorized
the formation of committees ``for ameliorating the condition
of the peasants,'' and laid down the principles on which the
amelioration was to be effected. This was a decided step
and it was followed by one still more significant. Without
consulting his ordinary advisers, his majesty ordered the
minister of the interior to send a circular to the provincial
governors of European Russia, containing a copy of the
instructions forwarded to the governor-general of Lithuania,
praising the supposed generous, patriotic intentions of the
Lithuanian landed proprietors, and suggesting that perhaps the
landed proprietors of other provinces might express a similar
desire. The hint was taken, of course, and in all provinces
where serfage existed emancipation committees were formed.
The deliberations at once raised a host of important, thorny
questions. The emancipation was not merely a humanitarian
question capable of being solved instantaneously by imperial
ukaz. It contained very complicated problems affecting
deeply the economic, social and political future of the
nation. Alexander II. had little of the special knowledge
required for dealing successfully with such problems, and
he had to restrict himself to choosing between the different
measures recommended to him. The main point at issue was
whether the serfs should become agricultural labourers
dependent economically and administratively on the landlords,
or should be transformed into a class of independent communal
proprietors. The emperor gave his support to the latter
project, and the Russian peasantry accordingly acquired rights
